


Healing

by FumeKnightofShovelry



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FumeKnightofShovelry/pseuds/FumeKnightofShovelry
Summary: A very, very brief look at Marianne's life, from youth to young woman, and finally, marriage.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Marianne.   
> Just finished FE3H, married Marianne.

Marianne von Edmund had not known much happiness in her life. Her fleeting joys in youth were in the company of animals and those few who knew her secret, but it could not compensate for the melancholy that dogged her at every turn. The recognition and memory of what she had lost, and the fragility of what little she still had, undid the foundations of, well, everything. Her own self-confidence, her ability to connect with those outside the know, her hopes and dreams...none of it could survive what she perceived as the reality of her situation.

And that had taken her to a very, very low place indeed. One where piety and devotion turned to figurative flagellation, to the self-fulfilling rhetoric of isolation, and, in the depths of her despair, to an earnest desire to die. 

It had taken some time to get that far. A toxic cocktail of self-loathing, fear, isolation, and a misguided belief in the danger she represented. Sleepless nights, wondering if  _ tonight _ would be the night her Crest would manifest its terrible curse, beyond the bad luck it carried with it. If tonight would be the night she would be driven to hurt her friends, and scare everyone else away. And when she did rest, her dreams were dogged by foreign memories of inflicting violence, terror, and a low, bubbling voice that spoke cryptically of “inheritance.”

Little wonder she carried a baggy-eyed countenance, with frazzled hair and a drowsy bearing. When the alternatives were lying awake through the darkness, considering miserable outcomes, or sleeping and being carried into the netherworld of tormenting night terrors...small wonder she was sapped of energy. 

So when Marianne used to pray for death, it was with more urgency than she gave most of her day-to-day activities. She did her best, or what she thought was her best, but fears of an empty future did a great deal to remove the urgency from her actions. 

Margrave Edmund, her father—no, her  _ adoptive _ father—tried, in his own way, to help. Marianne wanted to believe that he loved her, but his naked, grasping ambitions made it difficult to separate his care from his politicking. Being sent to Garreg Mach monastery was part of that conundrum. Perhaps he wanted to put her in a place where she could build bridges with others, and find a healthier situation, but she also knew that it fed into Margrave Edmund’s hopes of marrying her off to a powerful noble. 

After all, the incoming class of 1180 was a veritable who’s-who of the most esteemable scions of nobility in all of Fódlan. Within the Alliance, of course, was Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, whose family was second only to House Riegan in Leicester territory. But even outside the Alliance, the Empire offered the likes of Ferdinand von Aegir and Linhardt von Hevring, among others, whose union would benefit House Edmund tremendously on the international stage. And in the Kingdom, if Edmund wanted to be  _ truly _ ambitious, there was always the option of ingratiating her with Crown Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. But such aspiration could also direct her towards Claude von Riegan, Edmund’s own liege, if he wanted to match the safety of remaining within the Alliance with the reward of tying himself to the most powerful family in it.

Yes, all enviable, important, profitable matches, and all completely without regard for Marianne’s own wishes. But Marianne had never really believed she’d have much choice in the matter. That was how Fódlan nobility worked: marriage was an obligation and expectation, and women especially were supposed to go along with what was best. She well knew the consequences of breaking that pattern: a history of inter-family conflict and chaos was the usual outcome trying to go against that grain. And however much she wanted to be sure her adoptive father loved her, she knew that if she resisted he’d remove from the equation the little agency that he’d given her. She tried not to hold the possibility against him. She deserved the misery, after all, and she could only wish that she wouldn’t inflict her curse on others.

So, she’d arrived at Garreg Mach, and attempted in her own way to do things as they were supposed to be done. She attended lectures, and studied, and went on assignments and awkwardly participated in social situations when she found no recourse to avoid them, though her resignation and self-hatred pushed away more than a few who reached out to her. Her true joys were the stables and the gardens. 

At the stables, she could care for horses, speaking to and with them with more comfort and confidence than humans afforded her. Dorte, especially, was always an open ear, willing to hear her worries and fears, though she never gave away her secret. They were a bit of a complainer, but she’d accept that over having no back-and-forth at all. 

The gardens permitted her fleeting conversations with birds. They were too shy to stick around for long, especially when other students wandered nearby with their loud footsteps and louder voices, but the quick chats she was afforded gave Marianne yet more opportunities to bare her fears, and take in their chirping commentary on bugs and flowers.

And of course, the Cathedral. To find silence, and peace, and...to pray, for that which she knew she yearned for in her heart.

* * *

As the weeks and then months passed, she was able to form some fragile connections. With Hilda, whose boisterous energy was only matched by her ingenuity in avoiding obligation. With Raphael, loud and large and earnestly kind. With Lorenz, who studied her with more precision than she really understood, but nonetheless respected her withdrawal. With Ignatz, who nearly matched her penchant for silence and awkwardness, but who also afforded her opportunity to take things at her own pace. 

She would not call her interactions with Linhardt, Ferdinand, Claude, Leonie, or Lysithea as particularly cordial, but at least they weren’t outwardly hostile. True, she hadn’t found any true hostility here at the monastery, but she just...couldn’t manage knowing too many people at once. Knowing how close they all were to disaster. And she didn’t want to hurt them, if her prayers came true, by getting too close. So even as she allowed herself to communicate, she tried to remind herself to not make too many friends, not cast too wide a net, lest she cause more pain when things went to their inevitable conclusion.

One relationship in particular left her equally puzzled, fearful, and...confused. Her class’s professor. Byleth Eisner. He wasn’t much older than she was, and she did not understand why, exactly, the archbishop had given a young man the position of professor at Garreg Mach. 

But she was grateful for it. Byleth did not speak much, even during instruction, but he was patient with her stammering and apologizing. He was calm when she was fearful, and he had a bearing that always soothed her worries, however temporarily. He was kind and perceptive, and he knew when to give her space to be alone, and when to reach out to check on her. 

Marianne tried to convince herself that she didn’t deserve him, but something in her, some flustered, frustrated mess of tangled worry and need, refused to let her believe it. She didn’t know what it was, not yet. But she only felt it when he was near, whether that was directing her protection on the battlefield, guarding her himself, or guiding her through the nuances of swordsmanship, spearwork, white magic or horseback riding. A little spot of relief, and a little twinge of warmth.

* * *

Five long years had passed. But she had not forgotten her promise to her classmates, her friends, and her professor. To return to the ruins of Garreg Mach monastery for the millennium marking of the building’s construction. Her adoptive father had been reluctant to allow her departure, but for once, she had insisted.

The advance of time since that terrible day had afforded Marianne some reflection. The dreams of hunger and snarling promises still plagued her, but she’d spent enough time with others at the academy that insomnia dogged her less persistently with thoughts of the misery she might inflict on her friends. She was still frightened, still worried, but by now she’d recognized that if something calamitous was going to happen to her friends by proximity, it would have already. Perhaps she was still marked for a terrible fate, but the part of her that felt her death would save others had diminished. She still feared her curse’s effects on herself, but that was unavoidable.

When she prayed now, she prayed not for death, but for two things. For peace in Fódlan, firstly. More importantly, she prayed that she would see her Professor again. That the man who’d guided her, protected her, and inspired some small hope in her was not dead.

When she stepped past the threshold of the ruined wall, following Raphael and Lysithea in their collective journey from Leicester territory, for the briefest moment, she feared that the figure she saw before her, the very same green-haired, tall man she’d seen half a decade ago, was a phantasm. A lingering regret, a ghostly presence, the spectre of someone who’d fallen in battle five years ago. Why else would he look the same?

Then he met her eyes and gave her the same comforting, soft smile that he always shined in her direction, when she was his student and she was scared, defeated, or anxious. Only now it was tinged with a sliver of elation, a hint of relief...and the faintest flicker of wonder as he looked on her. And Marianne knew that he was no ghost. 

He was alive and he’d come back for all of them. He’d come back for her.

* * *

Marianne looked on the Wandering Beast, and recognized the silhouette that had shadowed her nightmares. She listened to it speak, and heard the voice that had whispered to her in her dreams. 

When it fell, she recognized the Crest Stone in the sword that was nestled in its remains. In the human bones that lay on the soil, the monstrous exterior wilted away. And when her suspicions were confirmed at the monastery—that it had been Maurice, and that he had been her ancestor, and that he had survived for over a thousand years, and that this blade was his own, Blutgang, and now hers—it should have horrified her. Repulsed her. That she should be related to such a monster, and now bore physical proof of the instrument of his transformation.

But she was not horrified. She was not frightened. She was...relieved. Relieved to end her ancestor’s suffering. Relieved to free her adoptive father’s lands of the ravages of a monster. Relieved to finally have suspicion warded off of her by a particularly dogged Crest scholar. And she was relieved to, finally, have cause to believe that she was not cursed. That her earlier move away from believing she was a blight on others could, at last, be extended to herself. One man’s failures did not taint her, however much those in the past had cast that accusation about when they’d tried to exterminate her ancestors.

She smiled, and laughed, and Byleth’s own grin lit up her soul almost as much as she was sure hers heartened him.

* * *

It was finally over. It had been difficult, and painful. There had been sacrifice, death, and danger, and their success had been far from assured. But they had won. Nemesis was dead, again. Claude could shape his vision of a better future. Her friends and allies were alive, and happy, and so was she.

Her adoptive father had pushed her to join Byleth’s army out of the belief that he’d benefit from her proximity to such a powerful figure, but she would have joined anyway. Now, Margrave Edmund wanted her back, to parade her and her influence around. But she couldn’t, even if she did finally feel confident in his love for her. She had to stay, now that she had reached a new understanding of herself. 

She knew what the confusion she’d felt was. The enfolded cord of warmth, tension, and nervous energy. She’d first felt it all those years ago, and it had tracked her to today, but it was a more welcome pursuit than the nightmares and visions she’d been subjected to.

Marianne loved him. She loved Byleth, and she had for so long, and just hadn’t known how to put the words together in her mind. Every time he comforted her, protected her, and welcomed her...that feeling, that little twist of fluster and yearning, grew, and now she could barely look at him without feeling heat blossom in her cheeks and a little rat-tat-tat in her heart. He was handsome, and she could see it, but the thrum that ran through her held more sway than mere physical affection. There was a congruence to being near and with Byleth, a completion, that Marianne knew had been what she’d been looking for all these years.

Meeting him in the Goddess Tower felt...fitting. It had been here, after all, that they’d retreated from the ball for a moment alone together. Before his father had died. Before everything had gotten so much worse. One more moment of calm before the chaos. Now that the war was passed, returning here seemed right.

She could have waited for him to start it first. Once, she would have. But with the peace they’d found, the effort they’d all put in, Marianne, for the first time, could muster a new kind of confidence. A new kind of bravery.

Still, Marianne stammered and blushed when she offered Byleth the emerald-set silver ring that she’d been waiting to give him. She’d practiced, but it still felt sudden, even to her, but she couldn’t think of a better way to express how much he meant to her. How she had healed and grown and come so far with him, and how she recognized what she meant to him, and him to her. And, to be a little self-indulgent, she wanted to show him how courageous she could really be.

Her face was flushed with warmth, her bearing nervous and stilted. She didn’t expect Byleth to wed her, with all the ceremony and such. Just to keep her in his heart. To let her know that he was with her.

Byleth did better than that. He smiled, and grasped her hands, and asked her to marry him. Not because he wanted to fix her, but because he wanted her just as she was. His right hand cupped her cheek, and she rested her fingers on his palm and wrist, stroking and holding him gently. She sighed happily, beaming and smiling brilliantly, touching him to stay anchored in this perfect moment.

Marianne had become so much more than she once was, and it was all thanks to Byleth. Together, they could support each other into their shared future, but even as they grew, that wouldn’t change how their love for each other was based on who they were  _ now _ , not some distant dream. Their happiness was safe, and secure. Just like she was, in the embrace of the man she would marry.


End file.
